Abe beats the shit out of me. Best thing that could happen to her, he falls down in the middle of S3l and gets run over by an RV.”
“Well… we can give it a try, anyway.”
“Sure. Old college try. You go to college, tiger?”
“Junior college, actually. I need two more years for a degree.”
“Waste of time. You want to be a cop, don’t you?”
Milo Fernandez nodded.
“They not gonna teach you that in college. Only way to learn about being a cop is to be one.”
Roy was about to launch into a war story from his days as a real cop in Oakland, but the young deputy’s attention strayed.
Milo looked around at the dark, dripping trees. “Roy, where’s Drago from here?”
Nevins pointed off toward the south. “That way. Four, five miles.”
“I’d like to see it sometime.”
“Nothing to see. Dozen or so burned out buildings.”
“What was it like, Roy? The fire and all. Was it exciting?”
Roy shrugged. He pulled on his Winston, coughed, spat on the ground. “Sure, if you get off on poking through ashes trying to make out which is human and which is… something else.”
The young trainee caught the older deputy’s hesitation and looked at him quickly. Roy studied the glowing tip of his cigarette and stopped talking.
Milo Fernandez looked off toward the south as though trying to see the burned out village through five miles of forest. “What do you think was going on there, Roy? At Drago? Before the fire?”
“Who knows? Cult of some kind. Los Angeles types. The people living there never went much outside their own village.”
“There were stories.”
“Yeah, I heard the stories. Bunch of crap.”
“Not human, people said.”
“Crap.”
“There was howling, they say. In the woods. At night.”
“So what? There’s lots of funny noises in the woods at night.”
“People still heard things out here after the fire. After everybody in Drago was burned up.”
“Look, amigo, some other time we’ll sit around a campfire and scare the shit out of each other with ghost stories. I’m not in the mood now, okay?”
“Sure, Roy. I’m just curious.”
Something rustled the bushes up ahead. The two deputies raised their heads, listening. They looked at each other, then back toward the sound.
“Who’s there?” Roy Nevins called.
Silence.
Another rustle of brush.
“Craddock…? Vane…?”
No answer. A flash of movement. A head rose above a clump of brush twenty feet ahead of the two deputies. A face looked at them. A pale face streaked with mud. Dark, matted hair. Eyes wild, with lots of white showing.
“Hey!”
The face ducked out of sight. Squishy sound of running feet on the wet ground.
“Son of a bitch.” Roy mashed the Winston out under his shoe and took off. Milo was already ahead of him, chasing the fleeing figure, who ducked and weaved among the trees.
The runner left the trail and fought through the undergrowth. The two deputies followed. Roy Nevins swore as the thorns clutched at him and mud seeped over the tops of his shoes.
“Halt!” Milo Fernandez called out. “Sheriff’s officers!”
Roy pounded on, the breath wheezing through his open mouth. He fumbled at the leather strap that snapped to the holster over the butt of his .38 police positive. Regulation.
Never could free the damn thing in a hurry. The hell with it. Firing your piece only meant trouble these days. You had to account for every fucking bullet. Nothing in sight to shoot at anyway. He could only catch glimpses of Milo’s back as the young deputy charged after the fleeing figure.
There was a thump of colliding bodies up ahead and a damp thud as they hit the ground. Roy floundered through the brush and almost fell over Milo. The young deputy was applying an armlock to the fugitive, who lay prone on the damp pine needles.
“I got him, Roy.”
“So I see. Suppose you flip him over so we can see what we got.”
Milo warily eased his hold. When the figure on the ground did not move, he grasped a shoulder and turned him over.
“A kid,” Roy said disgustedly.
The face that looked up at the deputies was pale and frightened. Oddly, he seemed not to be breathing hard.
“What’d you take off for?” Deputy Nevins said. The large, frightened eyes flicked from one of the deputies to the other. The boy made no attempt to answer.
“Get up.”
The boy rose to a crouch.
“And don’t think about running anymore. We’re taking a ride into town.”
Nevins took the boy’s arm and raised him to a standing position. The muscles were firm under the smooth flesh. He gestured with his head for Milo